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Future's End (episode)
After encountering a Federation timeship from the future, Voyager is flung back to Earth... and into the 20th century. Summary ''Voyager'' encounters an artificially generated graviton disruption, from which the 29th century timeship ''Aeon'' emerges, firing on Voyager. The pilot of the timeship, Captain Braxton, claims that Voyager will be responsible for a temporal explosion in the 29th century that will destroy the entire solar system. Captain Janeway responds with force to calm Braxton and eventually Voyager overpowers the timeship, causing Braxton to lose control of it. The graviton field begins to collapse and both ships are pulled in. Voyager finds itself in orbit around Earth, but in the 20th century. *''Operations Officer's log, supplemental. We've been on full sensor alert, looking for signs that anyone else has detected Voyager. As a precaution, I've also asked Neelix and Kes to monitor all media broadcasts. '' The search for Captain Braxton and his timeship begins; however, Braxton arrived 30 years earlier than Voyager, and crash-landed in a remote area of the mountains. He was unable to reach the ship in time, and instead it was found by Henry Starling, who began exploiting its 29th-century technology, beginning the microcomputer revolution of the 20th century. Thirty years later, a young woman named Rain Robinson is hired by Starling to watch for a certain kind of radiation (gamma radiation from Voyager's nacelles, though she didn't know it). She reports her findings to Starling, but is not to reveal her discovery to anyone else. When she found the radiation, Voyager received a standard greeting from Rain's Observatory. In response, Tuvok and Tom Paris were sent to find whatever information she had gathered and destroy it. Rain caught them, but all three were then forced to flee the observatory when Starling's assistant, Dunbar, attempted to vaporize them. Janeway and Chakotay break into Starling's office and begin downloading his database, hoping to find where the timeship is being kept, just as Starling walks in. He threatens them and orders Ensign Harry Kim to abort the download. Kim knows the Captain is in trouble, but as transporters were damaged by the rift, he orders the ship into low orbit for emergency transport, rescuing Janeway and Chakotay. Unfortunately, Voyager is spotted by someone videotaping a backyard barbecue, and the footage is seen by television viewers across the U.S. Memorable Quotes "We could've worn our Starfleet uniforms. I doubt if anyone would've noticed." : - Tuvok "Who are you, and what's that thing in your pants?" "I beg your pardon?" : - Rain Robinson and Tuvok, referring to a tricorder "Nobody'll know the difference!" "I'll know, Sharon. He's my brother; how can I face him knowing that our son is his son?" "All you need to know, Jack, is that I love you!" : - Sharon and Jack, on the soap opera "What does it mean, groovy?" : - Tuvok, to Tom Paris Background Information * This episode marks the first mention of a future Starfleet that monitors and repairs the timeline. In this case, it is the 29th century Starfleet using a timeship. Timeships exist as part of Starfleet beginning in the 26th century if not sooner, ( ), but all previous mentions only concerned Federation historians using the ships to study the past. In addition, as of at least 2373, a unit known as the Department of Temporal Investigations existed as part of the United Federation of Planets for purposes of investigating and reporting on all incidents of time travel involving Federation citizens, ( ) and may very well have been the precursor to the 29th Century-Starfleet depicted in this episode. *There's a very subtle gag in this episode involving the Communicators. Right after Harry receives the "Greeting from Earth" message from Rain Robinson he proceeds to contact the away team on the surface. As the Captain's Communicator beeps all of the native Angelenos walking past the away team immediately reach for their cellphones to answer them. This was probably a nod to the similarity of modern cellphone design and technology to the "futuristic" flip-top Communicators from the Original Series. *Janeway states in this episode that she "doesn't know what her relatives were doing this far back in history (1996)" but in the episode "11:59" she appeared to have extensive knowledge of a relative of hers living in the year 2000. Since "11:59" takes place over two years later, it is possible that Janeway's experiences in this episode encouraged her to find out more about her ancestors. Then again, the statement is technically correct; it is possible that Shannon O'Donnell, Janeway's ancestor in "11:59", was the only one of her relatives at the time to make any sort of lasting contribution to history, which would make researching anyone else but O'Donnell during that time very difficult. *Rain Robinson has a Talosian action figure on her desk which was released as part of the Star Trek 30th anniversary line-up from Playmates. *Janeway refers to late 1990s computer technology as "stone knives and bearskins". In , Spock makes the same analogy when referring to the technology of the 1930s. *Although this two-part story is set in 1996, there is no allusion made to the Eugenics Wars which had already been established as taking place at this time ( ; ). Whether this is a deliberate retcon or an error on the part of the production staff is unclear. However the DS9 episode "Doctor Bashir, I Presume" produced soon after this one, mentions the wars as taking place in the 22nd Century and not the 20th Century which might account for this (although writer Ronald D. Moore himself admitted this was an error on his part). Other non-canon suggestions for this discrepancy are that the wars had already finished before 1996 or did not affect Los Angeles, where this episode is set, being mainly confined to the Eastern hemisphere. It has also been suggested that the Eugenics Wars were conducted in secret so the general public did not know of them until later. Yet another explanation could be that the arrival of Braxton and his ship may have altered the timeline such that the Eugenics wars either never happened or where far less catastrophic then in the original timeline. * When Rain Robinson calls Henry Starling to tell him about the object she finds in orbit, Starling tells her not to be premature, but have a bottle of champagne ready. He is probably referring to a tendency for SETI scientists to always have a champagne bottle in the refrigerator - waiting for the day when alien signals are detected. Links and References Guest Stars *Sarah Silverman as Rain Robinson *Allan G. Royal as Braxton Special Guest Star *Ed Begley, Jr. as Henry Starling Co-Stars *Susan Patterson as Ensign Kaplan *Barry Wiggins as Sims (credited as Policeman) *Christian R. Conrad as Dunbar *Tarik Ergin as Ayala (uncredited) References Aeon (''Aeon''-type), Arizona, astrophysics, "B" movie, Barstow, Benetton, Blaine, Bride of the Corpse, California, Caltech, Chateau Coeur, chronometric data, Chronowerx Industries, computer, Dave, DY-100, Earth, Edsel, e-mail, Fourier spectral analysis, force field, gamma emission, gigabyte, graviton matrix, Griffith Observatory, groovy, Halley's comet, hard drive, Hermosa Earthquake, High Sierras, Hollywood, Howdy Doody HyperPro PC, isograted circuit, JPL, Jack, Jessica, Jim, KGB, laser, lava lamp (visual only), Los Angeles, Mars, meteorite, Orgy of the Walking Dead, paradox, pinball, pizza, polaron pulse, radio, Santa Cruz, Santa Monica, satellite, Saturn, science fiction, secret agent, SETI, SETI greeting, Sharon, soda, soap opera, Soviet Union, Soviet spy satellite, space-time continuum, Starfleet Academy, stone knives and bearskins, subatomic disruptor, taxicab, telephone, temporal matrix, temporal rift, tennis, thermal radiation, theta band filter, transporter, transtator, tricorder, truck, Turn-of-the-Millennium Technology, Twinlab, 247-Baker, UFO, ultraviolet radiation, United States of America, USSR, weather balloon Category:VOY episodes de:Vor dem Ende der Zukunft, Teil I nl:Future's End, Deel I